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Is this the future of magazines?

Design firm Berg has been working with Bonnier, a multimedia company that owns more than 50 magazines, including Popular Science, Parenting, Saveur, Transworld Skateboarding and Snowboarding and Field & Stream, to develop a next-generation magazine. In the video above, Berg demonstrates its vision, Mag+.

Far more attention is paid to how readers engage with magazines and what they want from them than to the device itself. It's an energizing way to think about how reading is evolving hand in hand with digital media. Rather than get hung up on the hardware, the designers focused on what people enjoy about reading magazines. On its blog, Berg writes:

Magazines have articles you can curl up with and lose yourself in, and luscious photography that draws the eye. And they’re so easy and enjoyable to read. Can we marry what’s best about magazines with the always connected, portable tablet e-readers sure to arrive in 2010?

As it appears, the design allows readers to see images and text together in classic magazine style, while easily shifting attention to one or the other, easily moving deep into articles and even selecting a piece of content (by pressing on the screen) for options like sharing via e-mail or learning more.

The techsperts at Gizmodo see a lot to like: "If this is the future for the magazine industry," Kat Hannaford writes, "suddenly I feel a lot more hopeful."